I Watson: Director's cut

An explosion rattled the windows. It was followed immediately by the sound of glass smashing and a car leaving tread on tarmac.

Rick Cole said, “What the…?” then he heard a voice from the past. He pressed the phone closer to his ear. “I need a favour. I seem to remember you owe me one.”

Cole answered, “Now ’ s not a good time. Did you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“Sounded like a bomb, in the High Road.”

Cole's door was open. In the main office every phone was ringing. In the corridor coppers were on the move, perked up like sniffer-dogs on heat. Even for old-timers alarm bells and distant sirens were shots of adrenalin.

“How the fuck would I hear it? They could nuke your part of town and I wouldn't hear it from here. Too many council estates between us. Anyway, good times are things of the past. So give me a time?” Cole paused, then, “Midnight.”

“Right. Same place. You remember the place?”

Cole nodded into the phone and hung up. He remembered the place.

Sooner or later it was always going to pull him back. There was nothing more certain, except booze on a copper's breath. He moved into the main office to join the confusion.

The first guest to arrive for the party left the train at King's Cross and picked up a minicab at the back of the station. The black cabs at the front were for people who didn't know the difference. He hadn't been to London for over a year but some things never changed. Getting ripped off was one of them.

“Falcon Street. It's off Sheerham High Road.”

“Got it, Boss, but there might be a delay. There’s been a bomb. It was on the news.”

The passenger grunted indifference and climbed in.

The driver was black, packing designer gear and gold trinkets. His patch was Shaftsbury, his punters the tourists. But most of them were tucked up in restaurant or theatre seats by now; between eight and ten were the dead hours. That's when he hit the stations.

King's Cross was favourite because it carried the northerners, from Newcastle and beyond. And northerners were easy pickings. They carried a heavy reputation for being tight so they felt obliged to make amends. The Scots were different. They enjoyed the stigma so much it made them even tighter. “What do you want, Boss? Give me the word. You want to enjoy the night, right?”

London, like the rest of the country, was floating in dope.

The passenger spoke. “And I was going to find a hot dog stand. Silly me.”

The cabbie recognized an accent. Not London, but not far off.

Reading, maybe. There were a lot of dodgy bastards there. His surprise registered in the mirror. The passenger saw it and smiled. It was a tricky, dangerous smile, the sort of smile you saw just before something nasty and sharp and reflecting your image in silver, flashed toward you. A little less certain the cabbie said, “It's the gear, Boss, and the price is right. If you want your shit mashed then you go down to Brixton or up to Stevenage.”

They motored north and hit the Great Cambridge. In the old days highwaymen had loved this road. They still did but now they called themselves something different and in front their lights were flashing. Traffic police were throwing their weight about. They were always making their random checks on cabbies, easy targets to enhance their arrest statistics. The weapon of mass destruction, Islam, had given them fresh impetus and although the traffic police were not necessarily armed it didn’t stop them enjoying the increased sense of potency.

“Charlie…”

The cabbie licked thick lips. They came all the way from St Lucia.

“Hey, I'm your man. We call the top gear Kate. Best price. I can drop it off.”

“Yeah, course you can.”

Another frightening look poured out of the mirror. The driver hesitated. “Your call, Boss. Here's my card, my number. Just ask for Wes, or Father Christmas for short.”

The passenger read the card out loud. “Benny's Mini Cabs.”

“Twenty-four hour service at your disposal. Deliveries free of charge. Anything else you want, company, just give us the nod. You name it, you got it. Any denomination, any age. Our aim's to please.” “I get my own company.”

“Figured you would, Boss. That much is crystal.”

“I'll bell you.”

“Right on.”

They turned into the High Road. The Carrington theatre loomed before them. Yellow light creamed the Victorian building, made the red brick glow like an electric fire. A line of punters waited at the box office while a bunch of East-European beggars and the odd blown-out Jesus freak annoyed them and the traffic roared past. The passenger turned in his seat. A massive cut-out of a scantily clad Anthea Palmer had caught his eye. She wore black underwear, fishnet stockings and lethal high heels. It was an image almost guaranteed to cause a traffic pile-up.

The driver noticed his interest. “You want tickets, Boss? I can get you tickets. Best seats in the house. If you want to meet with Anthea, I'll have to work on that one.” He chuckled.

The passenger flashed his straight teeth, sharing the joke.

The driver glanced again in his rear-view. His passenger was in his early thirties and blond hair in a unisex spiky style scrubbed him clean, smoothed out his face, but it was his smile that did the trick. A wolfish smile with a cheeky glint, lighting up the soulless pale-grey eyes.

It sent a shiver of night down the driver's spine.

The passenger left the cab and waited until it had disappeared before carrying his bag to a blue cast-iron gate that swung silently open to a four-storey terraced house that had been built in the grey fifties. In the nineties it had been converted by Pakistani property developers into four self-contained flats. Six flights of stairs took him to the third floor.

There was no lift. It belonged to a friend of a friend who used it only sparingly and let it out for an outrageous fee. It was close enough to the centre to be convenient yet far enough away to remain discreet. For those who used it discretion was the thing.

He’d seen the invitation on a website. You a creature of the night?

Wanna twin?

Wanna come?

We’re skippering over at Sheerham Dec 10/23.

And you’re all invited.

Wanna play?

Andrew Grant’s new musical, Bikini Line, featuring former weather girl, Anthea Palmer, is to get an extended run at the revamped Carrington Theatre before moving to the West End…

He smiled at the memory. So there it was. A theatrical production. But the audience sounded right up his street. And what about Anthea?

Since leaving the weather show she was making a name for herself. Barely a day went by without her photograph appearing in one of the tabloids. And on the front cover of Loaded her black plastic micro-dress had only half concealed her nipples and in the interview inside she’d confided to the reporter and the thousands of readers, that during the shoot she’d worn no underwear. His kind of girl. He unpacked leisurely, as though enjoying the routine of placing his gear neatly into the various drawers and cupboards. It was all about anticipation, working the fantasy, letting that fluttering sensation spread until it became – almost – unbearable. He took a photograph from his case, the final item. It was in a silver frame, in colour, a photograph of a woman in her early twenties. Her clothes and hairstyle were out of the seventies. He placed it carefully on the bedside table.

In the shower he used a pumice-stone then shaved his legs and underarms. He used Givenchy's Amarige behind his ears, inside his elbows, behind his knees and on his wrists. The perfume of indulgence. Back in the bedroom he stood before a full-length mirror.